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My English teacher really hates Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Art07 Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5995 days ago 61 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 169 of 194 22 November 2007 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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remush,
Are you nuts? I'm asking only %% of coutnries of those 3600 contibuters of the Esperanto Wiki. That numbers will show where the core of contibuters resides (I bet, they are mostly European, and there are very little of them from Africa, Asia and Middle East). I want number that show that Esperanto is what it claims -- all people throught the world using it and the nubmer of people who use Esperanto is the same as in Africa, Middle East, Asia -- to show that it is "a world language" and not favour Europians. Also, how many non-Europians are on the top positions of the Esperanto organisations? Also, remush, why when I'm just asking for plain numbers you are trying to drive the topic off with rethoric and polemic, but no facts in the form of numbers? Is it because it is hard to show precise numbers? For example, the precise number of Esperanto speakers in the world, the precise number of the Esperantists in local clubs throught out the world, official opinions of the prominent linguists in the world about Espernato, for example Noam Chomsky on Esperanto? Edited by Art07 on 22 November 2007 at 6:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6049 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 170 of 194 22 November 2007 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Ha ha ! Noam on Esperanto ? He did not even read William Dwight Whitney otherwise he would not have written such stupidities. Good he changed subject. BTW how many chess players are there in the world? We told you several times already that nobody knows (and personally I don't care because I have too many contacts already to cope with). Depends on the level. There are hundreds of organizations, and God knows how many isolated learners. Esperanto is not for you. Forget it. I would like to know how many people learned Esperanto just enough to be able to prove that it is rubbish. (well _all_ languages are rubbish, when you dismantle them. We are very fortunate that our brain is capable of putting the pieces together, ... well ... almost) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| rudyman12 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6550 days ago 30 posts - 29 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 171 of 194 22 November 2007 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The whole point of Esperanto is that it's neutral. If a natural language like English or Spanish became the dominant language, it's like saying its culture is dominant, or the countries where those languages originate from are dominant. Esperanto would keep everybody on an equal level as far as global communication goes because it's a second language for everybody, and is politically neutral. Not to mention the fact that Esperanto is designed to be an easy language to learn for people around the world, as opposed to the popular, natural languages.
The number of speakers of Esperanto (which can't be accurately determined from an online encyclopedia anyway) has nothing to do with the validity of the language.
Again, not that this affects the validity of Esperanto, but the reason it's very difficult to come up with the precise number of speakers of Esperanto is because it's a universal language, and therefore almost impossible to account for all of the people who learned Esperanto in various ways across the globe. Edited by rudyman12 on 22 November 2007 at 7:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Art07 Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5995 days ago 61 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 172 of 194 22 November 2007 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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rudyman12,
why is it so difficult to provide numbers? For example, I can provide you with number for my native language, Russian. And those numbers whould be pretty accurate. I can do the same for the English language. What the secrecy with Esperanto? remush, I asked about numbers. Why did you once again divert the subject and start speaking about chess? The chess game is far way from the language. And what's wrong with Noam Chomsky and his opinion on Esperanto. Noam Chomsky isn't the last man in the world in the linguistic science. Edited by Art07 on 22 November 2007 at 7:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 173 of 194 22 November 2007 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
If Esperanto were neutral, then it'd be fair to say that it'd be as inert as a programming language. Is it socially desirable for everyone to have "linguistic neutrality"? It kind of reminds me of the distinction between "fairness" and "equity" since "neutrality" isn't "fair" to everyone. Then again, I'm reminded of Sprachprofi's remarks that Esperanto does have culture (however way you define it) because of the congresses (i.e. something that satisfies the social behaviour of humans) and production of literature (i.e. something that satisfies the desire for humans to express themselves). The point is that Esperantists can't have their cake and eat it too. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If Esperanto is neutral, then in a certain sense it's be fair to call it artificial and not really comparable to natural languages which are often to tied to the culture of their speakers. If it has culture, then it's hard to call it neutral since culture can encompass different experiences that by definition can't be called "neutral". Culture is not neutral (nor is it positive or negative - taking things to their logical conclusion). Culture is culture. When it comes to numbers, it's not to Esperanto's favour that the number of its speakers is hard to estimate. It has nothing to do with the assertion that it's an "universal language" (empirically this is still wishful thinking). The problem is that it still has no official backing of a nation or body outside its own Esperanto societies/organizations (lukewarm support from the UN doesn't count). Therefore, anyone can make up numbers and it's hard to show to indifferent observers if the numbers are right or wrong. As I posted earlier, it pays for both critics and supporters to manipulate the numbers in order to validate their antipathy or enthusiasm respectively for Esperanto. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| rudyman12 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6550 days ago 30 posts - 29 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 174 of 194 23 November 2007 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Esperanto is seen in the arts, but I wouldn't say this is Esperanto culture more than just Esperanto making an appearance in another culture. Either way, Esperanto certainly doesn't have a culture in the sense that languages like English, Spanish, and say, Chinese do.
Because of that, I wouldn't say it removes any neutrality to the language. I also don't see how a "linguistic neutrality" wouldn't be fair to everyone. (At least, it'd be more fair than having one language that's associated with a specific culture and a specific country as the dominant languages of the world). If Esperanto is one (and arguably the best) way to provide global communication on an equal scale, then what reason do we have to criticize it? Edited by rudyman12 on 23 November 2007 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6251 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 175 of 194 23 November 2007 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This thread is getting ridiculous, again. Just short replies:
1. Alexa statistics are pretty accurate to get "the whole picture" only if you mean North Americans, because its sample is very biased, Alexa isn't used nearly as much in other countries. Read up on their methods. 2. Internet search is easy because Google supports Esperanto (it even has an Esperanto start page) and treats cx/ch/ĉ as one letter, just like it treats ae/& auml;/ä as the same letter for German. 3. Wikipedia doesn't keep stats of country of origin because the only information you enter on registration are user name, password and maybe e-mail. 4. Similarly it has stopped publishing statistics of page views, though I don't know why. 5. Precise numbers (or even estimated ones) as to how many people speak a language non-natively are an illusion. You just can't keep track of that across the world. Some countries don't even know how many people live in them, much less keeping track of what those citizens are studying at institutions, and of course getting statistics for self-study is even more impossible. If I learned Russian tomorrow, nobody would be the wiser. Edited by Sprachprofi on 23 November 2007 at 3:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Art07 Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5995 days ago 61 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 176 of 194 23 November 2007 at 4:26am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Wow! I aksed for numbers and got excuses again. I just asked for plain numbers!
1. Your boyfriend is the one who started the Esperanto Wiki and still maintains it. Doesn't he knows what country of origin are the contributres of the Esperanto Wiki? There are only 3600 of them, not that big number. 2. I can give you the estimated number for Russian speakers. It's not that hard. In Russia everybody speaks Russian, we have no dialects. So, based on the estimated population of Russia I'm saying that in the world there are not less than 140 mln speakers of Russian (the low number). 3. I can tell you the _precise_ numbers of the Russian Esperantists. In 2007 it is 405 who are regisred at REU (Rusia Esperantisto Unio). Here is the list http://reu.ru/index.php?dok=membrolisto So in the country with 140 mln people there are only 405 esperantists (the low number). Yes, not all are roll in into the REU, but almost all who knows Esperanto very good, the beginners are insignificant to count them as Esperantists, it's like counting you as a person who knows Russian if you took only a basic Russian course. 4. Don't you know the precise number of European, Asian, Middle Easters, Africans in the top positions of the World Esperanto Movement organisation? P.S. Please, don't tell me excuses, tell me just plain numbers! Edited by Art07 on 23 November 2007 at 4:31am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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